Fuel Shortages In Star Wars = Death Stars?

[Mr. Oragahn]

I'd rather say they have very well insulated systems (good materials and nice mix of vacuum, nanomeshes and small scale internal force fields), and super duper supraconductors.

[Lucky]

Where do I claim that?
I'm not getting where taking the extreme has pushed you, but it seems to be far from any point I made.

You built a house on quicksand, and are now wondering why it is falling apart. I'm simply taking your argument to its logical conclusion.

Your argument is simply that because something appears to be impossible in the real world, we must assume it is also impossible in fictional worlds despite evidence to the contrary. So, using your faulty logic, we must conclude that there are no anti-gravity systems that let T.I.E. Fighters fly.

If one fantastical thing that is stated to be there can't be there then none of the fantastical things can. You have to except all or nothing.

Unless you prove that the stars in SW output, like, a hundred times or more energy than ours, and that humans in SW can magically resist that kind of radiation, I think I'll stick with science, thank you.

Well you aren't even being honest. This is a rather blaitent straw man. I have no need to show the stars have higher then real world outputs. I've never stated such a thing, nor does anything I've stated require such a thing.

You're really not making sense. Your line of reasoning when applied to other things in Star Wars just doesn't hold up. You are effectively claiming repulsor lifts don't work after all because everything we know in the real world says they can't.

I have to prove nothing, but I'll humor you.

During the Clone Wars, security on Coruscant was bolstered with the addition of Republic police gunships. Smaller, sleeker, and less heavily-armed than the military-grade Republic attack gunship, the police gunship was better suited to navigate the skyline and was less likely to cause costly collateral damage with its pair of ball-mounted laser turrets that flanked the cockpit, or the a fixed laser cannon that extended from the rear. Four arm-mounted solar gather panels helped power the repulsorlift vehicle. The control cabin had two stacked seats, with the pilot elevated and slightly behind the gunner. The troop bay had side doors that folded upward for entry, and rear ramp for rapid deployment of police forces. After the Clone Wars, the Empire made equally good use of police gunships, using them to combat rebel threats from world to world.

DIMENSIONS
Length: 11.48m
Height: 5.43m
Width: 5.76m

The TIE fighter was the unforgettable symbol of the Imperial fleet. Carried aboard Star Destroyers and battle stations, TIE fighters were single-pilot vehicles designed for fast-paced dogfights with Rebel X-wings and other starfighters. The iconic TIE fighter led to other models in the TIE family including the dagger-shaped TIE Interceptor and the explosive-laden TIE bomber. The terrifying roar of a TIE's engines would strike fear into the hearts of all enemies of the Empire.

DIMENSIONS
Length: 8.99m

Building on the Clone Wars’ advances in starfighter design, the TIE became the signature fighter of the Empire. TIE fighters lacked shields and tough armor, depending on maneuverability and their pilots’ skill for effectiveness in combat. As the Empire tightened its grip on the planets of the galaxy, the Imperial war machine built TIE fighters on more and more worlds, and they became common sights in the skies of planets such as Lothal.

A TIE cockpit was cramped, and the fighter’s lack of defenses made flying one a dangerous calling. But TIE pilots took a perverse pride in the flaws of their craft. They saw the ability to fly a TIE effectively as the sign of true ability for a pilot, and TIE aces were held in great esteem by pilots who dreamed of amassing similarly impressive service records.

The Empire continually tested new technology for TIE fighters, with corporations such as Sienar Fleet Systems creating prototypes for expert pilots to fly. Some of these experimental TIEs had shields, advanced weaponry, tracking capabilities or superior maneuverability. The Empire unveiled one experimental TIE -- the TIE Advanced v1 -- on Lothal during Empire Day festivities. The Imperial agent known as the Inquisitor then piloted one of these prototype craft in combat against Lothal’s rebels.

The Rebel Alliance countered the Empire’s TIE squadrons with X-wings and Y-wings, which boasted heavier weapons and protective shields. But all Rebel pilots learned to fear the trademark howl of a TIE in flight. TIE fighters played many roles within the Imperial fleet: conducting reconnaissance for Star Destroyers, serving as sentry ships for the Death Star, neutralizing or destroying ships flown smugglers and pirates, and patrolling the skies of Imperial worlds.

The campaign against the Rebellion spurred new research and testing of TIE models. During the Battle of Yavin, Darth Vader led the Death Star’s TIE corps in a prototype TIE Advanced. Vader and his wingmen destroyed numerous Rebel fighters during their defense of the Death Star, which was thwarted by an unexpected attack by the Millennium Falcon.

At the Battle of Hoth, TIE fighters harassed fleeing Rebel transports and fighters, and pursued the Falcon into the tumbling chaos of an asteroid field -- a spectacularly dangerous mission for unshielded starfighters. When the Falcon went to ground deep within the field, TIE bombers prowled the asteroids, dropping ordnance in an effort to flush the freighter out of hiding.

At the Battle of Endor, the Rebels faced off against the Empire’s newest model of TIE fighter, the dagger-winged TIE interceptor. These speedy fighters swarmed the Alliance’s squadrons and ships of the line, blasting away at the Emperor’s enemies with wing-mounted laser cannons.

Tasked personally by Darth Vader with a mission to destroy all children of the Force, the Inquisitor was given access to the Empire's latest technologies. The Inquisitor's TIE Advanced prototype was superior to typical TIE fighters, featuring faster engines, S-foils with more efficient solar gather panels, upgraded laser cannons, and a projectile launcher that fired Imperial XX-23 S-Thread Tracers.

Basically you need to explain why solar panels are so important to Police Gunships and T.I.E. series. The logical conclusion is that the solar panels which are defining traits on both T.I.E, and Police Gunships are a major source of power for the craft.

You then also notice that T.I.E. and Police Gunships seem to have abnormally tiny reactors if they have them at all.

Now Mr.O, you need to prove that no system on a T.I.E. series or Police Gunship is over 100% efficient for your claims to have any merit, and you need to show every system used in Star Wars obeys the known laws of physics

There are plenty of its and bits because as far as we know, they only talk about solar panels.
In other words, we only know that these panels are related to the power feeding of the ships, AND that they're related to anything solar.
Based on this alone, my scooping theory is quite solid and fits rather well if, for a moment, you're willing to consider that there can be more to a "solar panel" than the simple definition we have here on Earth, as the usual layman term.
The only unknown factor I haven't had time to check on is the density of particles such panels could theoretically collect, with perhaps the help of some lateral force fields.

A third idea (or more precisely a second plausible one) would be that the panels themselves host micro-fusion reactions. The link with the lexical field of anything solar is quite tenuous, but we're looking for the fusion = star relation here.
Now, losing thermal energy through simple black body radiation isn't that efficient. Besides, losing heat is the latest thing you want to main a fusion reaction actually. So right now, without thinking more about it, I wouldn't know how to legitimize the shape and exposition of the panels.

Interestingly enough, I could combine both theories into one: they collect protons AND the reactions occur in the panels, but it's not exactly necessary.

Perhaps you should think some more since you're admitting to not thinking what you're typing through. Your unable to comprehend the ramifications of your arguments, and can't readily identify them when applied to other things in Star Wars.

1) You don't have a THEORY you. You have a HYPOTHESIS.

2) The solar panels are stated to help power the repulsor lift systems, and not reactors..

3) Police gunships operate in atmosphere. This kind of destroys your whole subatomic collector HYPOTHESIS.the atmosphere and various fields around a planet will stop most charge particle.

4) T.I.E. series normally lack any shields or armor.

Not really. There's nothing magic about expelling energized particles.
There are even interesting discoveries made about microwave propulsion.
The real magic lies in the potential existence of mass lightening tech that can be activated in deep space, for more or less linear trajectories. Of course the mass of the fuel itself would be reduced, and at some point, either deep inside the thruster or once far from the aft of the ship, it would leave the mass lightening field and regain its normal mass, and thus lose a lot of its speed (and therefore, that's the interesting point, create a more condensed cloud of particles at the end of the thruster, which by its simple existence might push the shp furter, along the possibility that the still lightened particles would come into contact with the cloud of "normal" hot particles and push against them).
But since acceleration formulae involve square factors, there's perhaps something to look at there.

The panels power reactionless drives.

You're switching standards when they suit you. One moment you say SW is near pure magic, and the next moment you deny fusion engines because the craptastic fission plants we have today are ridiculously huge.

Straw Man

I've done no such thing. I'm merely pointing out that the reactors used in Star Wars need to be magic as much as the solar panels, and thereby pointing out your hypocrisy.

You've applied one standard to solar panels while not applying the same standard to things like repulsor lifts, hyper-drives, artificial gravity, the absurdly tiny reactors, the tiny amount of fuel... They shouldn't work, but they do.

You have a double or more standard, and I'm just pointing it out.

Besides, not a single "fusion" reactor today works. They're all theoretical. Right now, the idea of putting a star in a bottle is akin to chasing a pink unicorn.

I see you're ignoring the fact we have exceeded the break even point.

You do realize what chasing the invisible pink unicorn means, right? That's a rather major insult to people working on fusion reactors.

But there's a catch, because science tells us that there are fuel sources which, if they could be fused, would provide massive amounts of power for very little mass.
The only liberty taken in SW, therefore, is the assumption that they have reached the technological level needed to run a self contained, self perpetuating fusion reaction at a small scale, in a very safe way.

Straw Man

You can only extract limited amount of energy from a given amount of fuel, and you get less and less energy out of the fuel until you reach iron, and then you start losing energy.

You have no qualms about magic fusion reactors that really shouldn't work as far as known physics is concerned, but you have some pathological repulsion to the idea that solar panels in the same setting can exceed 100% efficiency?

The "people in the setting" means the characters. Whom we hardly ever hear talking about solar panels, even less what they're supposed to be.

As for on screen evidence, what do you mean?
There's quite none as far as the whole idea of "solar panels" is concerned.

Straw Man

You're assuming that you know better then the in-universe engineers who designed the T.I.E. series and the Police Gunship. You're arguing that they put solar panels on the craft for no advantage, and that no one called them on it.

You're ignoring clearly stated information from the canon databank. The panels power the propulsion system.

We see the T.I.E. series and Police Gunship work well, and that means you are the one who is wrong, but your response is to come up with stupidly complex system to BS your way instead of just take the evidence at face value.

No actually that is you being dishonest right now, alongside appealing to ridicule.
SW never claimed to be stupid. Hamsters powering a ship IS stupid unless we're dealing with some super hamster we don't know and we'd probably not call those hamsters, nor would Star Wars really be taken seriously for such a silly idea.
Remember, SW is at first a serious setting with humour on top, like many great stories.

You, you're working backwards and assuming that your "Looney Toons + ACME tech" argument works.
Well, nope, it fails.

Straw Man, if you have nothing to say, say nothing.

No, you've claim the engineers in Star Wars are idiots for making craft that have large bulky solar panels that are nearly useless, you've come up with over complicated technobabble BS that ignores clear and direct quotes, and all the while ignoring the magic required for everything else in the setting to work.

Solar Panels that exceed 100% efficiency are no more magic then Fusion Reactors that exceed 100% efficiency, or anti-matter that exceeds E=MC^2, or Hyper-matter reactors, or anti-gravity, or artificial gravity, or magical crystals.

[Lucky]

Technically, it says "solar fin".

Leia's ship was hit in the "main solar fin of the Rebel craft", and Vader's TIE and its two buddies are noted thus:

"Three TIE fighters, Vader flanked by two wingmen, dive in a
tight formation. The sun reflects off their dominate solar
fins as they loop toward the Death Star's surface."

Later:

"Vader's damaged ship spins out of the trench with a damaged wing.

EXTERIOR SPACE AROUND THE DEATH STAR.

Vader's ship spins out of control with a bent solar fin,
heading for deep space."

One could either argue that the film replaces Leia's solar fin with something else but that the TIEs do have them, or else argue that both the spinning thingy blown off of Leia's ship and the TIE wing solar fins serve the same purpose and gathering sunlight ain't it. The context of everything suggests the solar fin on Leia's ship was tied to the reactor and its loss caused reactor shutdown (or required it, as per the radio play).

That would make sense for a radiator.

Except that the databank clearifies what the script meant.

S-foils with more efficient solar gather panels,

[Darth Spock]

Okay, let me see if I understand the two basic takes on the T.I.E. panels here:

A) The solar panels/fins/sails can't be the same as conventional solar cells because the technology, as it exists currently, isn't powerful enough to matter.

B) The Solar panels in Star Wars are the same thing as current day solar panels. It doesn't matter if they make sense in the real world, because the fictional units can operate however they want.

Did I miss something?

Honestly, I like this version:

Well, as far as the solar panels go, what I pointed out in the other thread is that while it's absolutely nowhere near combat requirements, it could conceivably power life support, station-keeping drives, etc; and it could be very directly dual-purpose in terms of a very black surface that functions as a passive solar input in "patrol" mode and a radiant heat sink in combat mode.

Given how much more power is required for combat performance, those savings might not seem terribly impressive, but it certainly makes sense in terms of an emergency back-up power system, and if it's effectively "free" to put heat sinks / solar panels in the S-foils you were already adding for maneuverability purposes, why not?

Heh, the dual-purpose panels are sort of like the alternator? As you said, why not, if you've got the space.

I think the fuel shortage stuff in terms of scripting was not added with due consideration of technology and economy, but it is there and it does point systematically to limitations.

As regarding fusion only needing hydrogen, Star Wars fusion reactors might need "enriched" hydrogen, i.e., deuterium or even tritium, at which point you need to either have an enrichment process or do a lot of filtering. Tritium has a half-life of 12 years, while deuterium is stable, so tritium-based fuels (I would suggest, chemically, pointing to some variety of hydrocarbon as your hydrogen-delivery mechanism) would be very expensive.

What with the glowing green goop they've brought on as fuel in the CW and now Rebels, either reactors in SW aren't "normal" fusion reactors after all, or there are different types of reactors with different fuels for different jobs.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Where do I claim that?
I'm not getting where taking the extreme has pushed you, but it seems to be far from any point I made.

You built a house on quicksand, and are now wondering why it is falling apart. I'm simply taking your argument to its logical conclusion.

Your argument is simply that because something appears to be impossible in the real world, we must assume it is also impossible in fictional worlds despite evidence to the contrary. So, using your faulty logic, we must conclude that there are no anti-gravity systems that let T.I.E. Fighters fly.

If one fantastical thing that is stated to be there can't be there then none of the fantastical things can. You have to except all or nothing.

You meant accept, right?

You are confused between natural laws (aka physics) and supertech being so advanced that it is akin to magic in certain regards, all mixed with the presence of the Force in the background (that's the only real supernatural aspect to it, and I'd perhaps disagree on the term supernatural here). If anything, the Force could be called a fifth elementary force. GL went as far as to say small symbiotic organisms were needed to control that force and its hidden energies.
So we have lightsabres that use crystals and super power cells, for which I have no problem, and on the other hand, the natural elements like a planet's atmosphere, the water in lakes and rivers, birds and stars, of which we know more or less the working, at least to a sufficient extent for our debates here.

Just to repeat myself so things are clear: Star Wars is primarily based in reality, with a veneer of techno-fantasy, with tech nearly magical in some aspects, and the Force behind. That's soft science fiction and fantasy all rolled into one product.
This is the setting, this is my basis of work.
Until you agree with my vision, we're not going to get anywhere, and you'll keep reading stuff that is simply not there.

See, my logic doesn't preclude TIE fighters' anti-gravity engines from working. I perfectly assume that man-made tech can have extremely impressive properties.
But they still require power to work, energy to be consumed to allow the ship to move, because moving isn't gratuitous nor cheap.
It doesn't change the fact that a rock that falls on a planet does it because of gravity, and gravity is a force of a certain value, according to behaviours we can predict because of real science, all of which we don't need to make silly assumptions about because we know they're correct and work. We're educated enough about them.

By default, we always assume the laws of physics apply in SW. Anything odd, counter-intuitive, needs an explanation to some extent.

Unless you prove that the stars in SW output, like, a hundred times or more energy than ours, and that humans in SW can magically resist that kind of radiation, I think I'll stick with science, thank you.

Well you aren't even being honest. This is a rather blaitent straw man. I have no need to show the stars have higher then real world outputs. I've never stated such a thing, nor does anything I've stated require such a thing.

You're really not making sense. Your line of reasoning when applied to other things in Star Wars just doesn't hold up. You are effectively claiming repulsor lifts don't work after all because everything we know in the real world says they can't.

I have to prove nothing, but I'll humor you.

I suggest you try to humour me once you got your facts straight about science.
Still, it is not a straw man since I didn't claim that is what you said, I pointed out the IMPLICATION of your claim; that is, what would be needed for your claims to be valid.

You claim that these panels are photovoltaic panels. We know that they cannot absorb more than the ambient light and sunlight (otherwise they're not solar panels).
But we know starships must consume large quantities of fuel to power everything from drives to weapons, scanners and all the other systems.
We're looking at thousands of kilowatts here already at the very least. Nothing that solar panels could ever hope to provide, because the requirements are like thousands if not tens of thousands times greater than any kind of energy that can be gathered with PV panels.

If they were PV panels, considering their importance and relevance (distant secondary systems wouldn't be so huge), they'd be ought to provide most of the power requirements for a TIE fighter for example.*
Which means they'd need to be able to gather more energy than what is readily available from the environment.
Hence, the implication that we need to boost the environment's energy thousand folds for the PV panel/fin theory to work.

Which is stupid.
So if we want to stick with something remotely SOLAR, that is, star related, we have to look for logical alternatives to PV panels, and that's what I did.
That's what you don't understand.

* If the PV solar panels were secondary, logic would have them be entirely removed because the main power sources, considering the needs I listed, would so far outweigh the PV solar panels in terms of power, that they'd have no real use. Any bog standard backup power cell would be plain enough, reliable and take far less room! (For example, the sort of battery pack used alongside an E-web tripod blaster.)

Basically you need to explain why solar panels are so important to Police Gunships and T.I.E. series. The logical conclusion is that the solar panels which are defining traits on both T.I.E, and Police Gunships are a major source of power for the craft.

You then also notice that T.I.E. and Police Gunships seem to have abnormally tiny reactors if they have them at all.

Now Mr.O, you need to prove that no system on a T.I.E. series or Police Gunship is over 100% efficient for your claims to have any merit, and you need to show every system used in Star Wars obeys the known laws of physics

See? Another strawman argument. I needn't explain anything, for I don't reject the idea that the panels provide main power to the crafts.

And I also already know that the size of TIE reactors is small. We could always say it's turbo compressed, but we could also mix that to reaction-less drives too. A bit of both, if you will.

I don't see where I have to prove something just as silly as "no system on a T.I.E. series or Police Gunship is over 100% efficient", because I, first, never made such a claim (oh look, again, another strawman), and because I, on the contrary, even said that systems aren't efficient so there's a waste.

There are plenty of its and bits because as far as we know, they only talk about solar panels.
In other words, we only know that these panels are related to the power feeding of the ships, AND that they're related to anything solar.
Based on this alone, my scooping theory is quite solid and fits rather well if, for a moment, you're willing to consider that there can be more to a "solar panel" than the simple definition we have here on Earth, as the usual layman term.
The only unknown factor I haven't had time to check on is the density of particles such panels could theoretically collect, with perhaps the help of some lateral force fields.

A third idea (or more precisely a second plausible one) would be that the panels themselves host micro-fusion reactions. The link with the lexical field of anything solar is quite tenuous, but we're looking for the fusion = star relation here.
Now, losing thermal energy through simple black body radiation isn't that efficient. Besides, losing heat is the latest thing you want to main a fusion reaction actually. So right now, without thinking more about it, I wouldn't know how to legitimize the shape and exposition of the panels.

Interestingly enough, I could combine both theories into one: they collect protons AND the reactions occur in the panels, but it's not exactly necessary.

Perhaps you should think some more since you're admitting to not thinking what you're typing through.

Here comes another strawman wherein I'd have admited not thinking what I'm typing. (???)
Incredible.
What I said is that I didn't verify yet that my theory would work because it requires the panels to scoop enough protons (or anything fusion friendly spewed from a star, or eventually consumed as a star does).
I mean, really, it would help if you could read more than the first and last words of the bits you quote.

Your unable to comprehend the ramifications of your arguments,

My unable what?

and can't readily identify them when applied to other things in Star Wars.

1) You don't have a THEORY you. You have a HYPOTHESIS.

2) The solar panels are stated to help power the repulsor lift systems, and not reactors..

3) Police gunships operate in atmosphere. This kind of destroys your whole subatomic collector HYPOTHESIS.the atmosphere and various fields around a planet will stop most charge particle.

4) T.I.E. series normally lack any shields or armor.

1. Oh, being anal. Still, considering that my hypothesis would seem to bridge everything (solar panels being solar and the main power source), it's pretty much close to a system that predicts the setting and thus qualifies as a theory. I'm just lacking time for verifying H+ densities but I'll try to tackle that (which means I'll have to pay less attention to your posts, which imho won't be that damning).

2. Which is a bad cop out because they'd still need a shit lot of power to move the craft. It'd also be a severe design flaw on TIEs considering that they appear to largely be spacecrafts. Indeed, they're so bad at aerodynamics that before even thinking about repulsor lifting, I'd at least try to limit power waste because of drag.

3. Do you even realize that in atmosphere, photovoltaic panels are even less efficient than in outerspace, because of things like clouds and photon scattering and absorption, even through transparent air?
Geez.

4. Already dealt with, but thank you for being fucking late mate. As usual.

Extra point: it's the official databank, but as always, most debators usually put little faith in it.

I don't even think it's ever been declared canonical. Has it?

Not really. There's nothing magic about expelling energized particles.
There are even interesting discoveries made about microwave propulsion.
The real magic lies in the potential existence of mass lightening tech that can be activated in deep space, for more or less linear trajectories. Of course the mass of the fuel itself would be reduced, and at some point, either deep inside the thruster or once far from the aft of the ship, it would leave the mass lightening field and regain its normal mass, and thus lose a lot of its speed (and therefore, that's the interesting point, create a more condensed cloud of particles at the end of the thruster, which by its simple existence might push the shp furter, along the possibility that the still lightened particles would come into contact with the cloud of "normal" hot particles and push against them).
But since acceleration formulae involve square factors, there's perhaps something to look at there.

The panels power reactionless drives.

Solar panels alone can't provide enough power to move a simple yet powerful car directly.
Plus the TIE fighters probably have more to do with a Lamborghini Aventador than a ridiculous one seated box with tiny wheels and a horsepower of 2?

You're switching standards when they suit you. One moment you say SW is near pure magic, and the next moment you deny fusion engines because the craptastic fission plants we have today are ridiculously huge.

Straw Man

I've done no such thing. I'm merely pointing out that the reactors used in Star Wars need to be magic as much as the solar panels, and thereby pointing out your hypocrisy.

You've applied one standard to solar panels while not applying the same standard to things like repulsor lifts, hyper-drives, artificial gravity, the absurdly tiny reactors, the tiny amount of fuel... They shouldn't work, but they do.

You have a double or more standard, and I'm just pointing it out.

Oi, you're mixing things up to such an extent, it's a real spaghetti mess.
For clarification, I'd simply point to how this small section of how our exchange started, for the sake of context:
http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... 949#p51949

Your argument was pure nonsense. You literally denied the existence of futuristic fusion engines on TIE fighters because (take a breath, the shit writes itself)... of the size of contemporary fusion and fission power plants!
Which was extra lol because there are NO fusion power plants in existence at the present time.
So you pushed this stupidity to its maximum and literally boldly claimed that Luke didn't use a transportable fusion reactor on Dagobah, when it is literally described as a "fusion furnace" in the script itself. Good lord.
You clearly have no idea when to exclude ideas because of real world physics and known phenomena, and when to keep them because there's enough wiggle room for them to work.
I.E., you can't claim solar panels work by collecting sunlight for starships because that's not enough energy around, that is all. PERIOD. We know how much stars output in terms of energy, we know the intensities to be expected over a given distance.
But there are no reasons to deny the potential existence of very advanced fusion furnaces, for the simple reason that theoretically, fusion can work at very small scales and still provide massive amounts of power. Star Wars has mastered light based technology, it also largely relies on a large variety of force fields, it also uses nanotechnology, knows gravity manipulation at large (found in things as small as watermelon sized droids), plus advanced computing and artificial sentience. They have all that's necessary and thousands of years of empirical industrial experience in the field.

Besides, not a single "fusion" reactor today works. They're all theoretical. Right now, the idea of putting a star in a bottle is akin to chasing a pink unicorn.

I see you're ignoring the fact we have exceeded the break even point.

No, we never did. Best ratios thus far are stuck at 70%. Get your facts straight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
http://www.livescience.com/43318-fusion ... stone.html

The breakeven point has NOT been reached. And of those who claim to have reached one of the goalS of the BEP, it turns out that they needed to consume 100 times more energy to actually make it work, with no sign of the system being sustainable (either the reaction holding up on the long term, or the materials resisting).

In other words, they realized a one shot fusion event by using a fuckton of energy to create the fusion reaction, which then died. This is not that different from a fission-fusion thermonuclear bomb.
It's not even good as a weapon (because powering the fragile laser system is very complicated, using explosives is just better), even less stable for civilian use. Thus far, it's again an enormous failure.

ITER is nothing more than a project that is as highly speculative as it is expensive, of which we'll know the true value around 2019~27. Not holding my breath.

You do realize what chasing the invisible pink unicorn means, right? That's a rather major insult to people working on fusion reactors.

Here we go again. Stop playing the offended card to silence the opposition because I'd be His Majesty the Dark Lord of Nonrespect.
Will there be one moment when you will not resort to this tired trick?
Grow a skin, dammit.

But there's a catch, because science tells us that there are fuel sources which, if they could be fused, would provide massive amounts of power for very little mass.
The only liberty taken in SW, therefore, is the assumption that they have reached the technological level needed to run a self contained, self perpetuating fusion reaction at a small scale, in a very safe way.

Straw Man

You can only extract limited amount of energy from a given amount of fuel, and you get less and less energy out of the fuel until you reach iron, and then you start losing energy.

You have no qualms about magic fusion reactors that really shouldn't work as far as known physics is concerned, but you have some pathological repulsion to the idea that solar panels in the same setting can exceed 100% efficiency?

WTF. Strawman isn't an automatic buzzword.
Learn its definition please.

I have problems with solar panels for very specific reasons that completely fly above your head!
Fusion power doesn't annoy me because in theory, the amount of power one can obtain from a 100% efficient proton-proton chain fusion reaction is insanely high: about 6.3e14 Joules per kilogram! With such potential, a near perfect reactor would only need to "burn" handfuls of micromoles of fuel to cover the average domestic needs in power.
So that's why it's a tolerable assumption, something we can accept.
A reactor with a 1% efficiency would only need to burn one fraction of a gram at a time to cover such needs.
But the same scientific logic also means it does not work for solar panels, because the amount of power they can deliver is capped by something we know very well, that's the output of stars (or anything that shines light as a matter of fact), and 359 already covered that part too.

SUMMARY:

Fusion power is a pro-active tech. It generates power.
Solar panels (as PhotoVoltaic-cell tech) is passive. It mainly is about collecting, then does some action in the form of converting. But the capstone is in the collection phase.

The "people in the setting" means the characters. Whom we hardly ever hear talking about solar panels, even less what they're supposed to be.

As for on screen evidence, what do you mean?
There's quite none as far as the whole idea of "solar panels" is concerned.

Straw Man

You're assuming that you know better then the in-universe engineers who designed the T.I.E. series and the Police Gunship. You're arguing that they put solar panels on the craft for no advantage, and that no one called them on it.

You're ignoring clearly stated information from the canon databank. The panels power the propulsion system.

We see the T.I.E. series and Police Gunship work well, and that means you are the one who is wrong, but your response is to come up with stupidly complex system to BS your way instead of just take the evidence at face value.

Your use of the term straw man has become farcical by now. Following this trend, I predict that if I get one penny for each time you use it, by the end of the year I'll be a millionaire.
Do you even understand the meaning of those rather simple sentences you quoted?

Hell, I talk of on screen evidence or anything stated by characters, and you pull the damned database. Plu-eez.
Look, if I'm asking for information from the canonical sources, in this case the movies, yes I'm going to ignore the database. Not as a whole regarding the entire debate, but within the very context of this special request about evidence... from the movies. Seems fair and logical, right?

No actually that is you being dishonest right now, alongside appealing to ridicule.
SW never claimed to be stupid. Hamsters powering a ship IS stupid unless we're dealing with some super hamster we don't know and we'd probably not call those hamsters, nor would Star Wars really be taken seriously for such a silly idea.
Remember, SW is at first a serious setting with humour on top, like many great stories.

You, you're working backwards and assuming that your "Looney Toons + ACME tech" argument works.
Well, nope, it fails.

Straw Man, if you have nothing to say, say nothing.

No, you've claim the engineers in Star Wars are idiots for making craft that have large bulky solar panels that are nearly useless, you've come up with over complicated technobabble BS that ignores clear and direct quotes, and all the while ignoring the magic required for everything else in the setting to work.

Solar Panels that exceed 100% efficiency are no more magic then Fusion Reactors that exceed 100% efficiency, or anti-matter that exceeds E=MC^2, or Hyper-matter reactors, or anti-gravity, or artificial gravity, or magical crystals.

How can we even have a proper discussion when you don't even understand the basic substance and tenets of Star Wars?

I didn't ignore the idea that panels power ships (that's a strawman you made up because you don't understand what I typed). I precisely did the best I could to find a way to bridge contradictory premises, and simply went the way of "solar" not meaning photovoltaic, but something directly related to fusion, either by collecting fusion friendly particles (which would also work in an atmosphere, and probably better in fact due to the concentration of hydrogen in water for example, assuming they can be quickly dissociated through, say, electrolysis*), or by literally housing fusion reactions inside the panels. I even suggested that both theories could be merged, but I don't exactly fancy the second one. I prefer to limit the panels to a particle-scooping mechanism role.

I just cannot be clearer.

* a process using electrolysis for further fuel generation might somehow explain the use of hydrospanners as mechanical tools aboard ships.

2046 wrote:
Technically, it says "solar fin".

Leia's ship was hit in the "main solar fin of the Rebel craft", and Vader's TIE and its two buddies are noted thus:

"Three TIE fighters, Vader flanked by two wingmen, dive in a
tight formation. The sun reflects off their dominate solar
fins as they loop toward the Death Star's surface."

Later:

"Vader's damaged ship spins out of the trench with a damaged wing.

EXTERIOR SPACE AROUND THE DEATH STAR.

Vader's ship spins out of control with a bent solar fin,
heading for deep space."

One could either argue that the film replaces Leia's solar fin with something else but that the TIEs do have them, or else argue that both the spinning thingy blown off of Leia's ship and the TIE wing solar fins serve the same purpose and gathering sunlight ain't it. The context of everything suggests the solar fin on Leia's ship was tied to the reactor and its loss caused reactor shutdown (or required it, as per the radio play).

That would make sense for a radiator.

Except that the databank clearifies what the script meant.

S-foils with more efficient solar gather panels,

And what the hell is "solar gather panel" supposed to mean? Who even typed such bad english? It wouldn't pass as a proper newspaper headline, and god knows that they do butcher english to unfathomable lengths!
It's caveman lingo, it's absolutely terrible.
All it says is... well it says nothing, it's just an amalgamation of three words.
Amusingly, my theories are still totally compatible with those three words! :)
Yes it's solar related. Yes it gathers. And yes, the panels do it.

[Mr. Oragahn]

Okay, let me see if I understand the two basic takes on the T.I.E. panels here:

A) The solar panels/fins/sails can't be the same as conventional solar cells because the technology, as it exists currently, isn't powerful enough to matter.

B) The Solar panels in Star Wars are the same thing as current day solar panels. It doesn't matter if they make sense in the real world, because the fictional units can operate however they want.

Did I miss something?

A. Even if it were "powerful enough", AKA 100% efficient at collecting and sucking the energy out of every single photon of whatever wavelength, it wouldn't be enough because the amount of energy waiting to be extracted per square meter is to low at a distance of 1AU (Earth-Sol distance).
The difference between what is expected to be consumed by such crafts and what they could collect in the best case scenario is a thousand fold at the very least.

It would get better at closer distances but it would need to be very close, while in general such is not the case in a stellar system.
Fighters that would generally patrol worlds that sit in the inhabitable region of a stellar system wouldn't have the luxury to tap high intensities.

Let's not even talk about operating outside of star systems, or being stuck in a shadow of a moon or a planet, or for the in atmosphere cases, moving through a fog or a rainy day, or at night, etc.

B. It turns out that SW isn't that divorced from reality. Even more, most of the terms that sound scientific in SW are simply borrowed from out lexicon of real world science.
Otherwise, if solar panel really does mean anything, there's even less reasons to argue that it refers to photovoltaic technology. It could be running on energized pixie dust.

At some point, due to the attributes observed as far as fuels are concerned in SW, JMS came up with the idea of diesel fusion. It's quite a good one.
Diesel sounds weird if you think combustion, but it becomes quite nice when moving to the fusion level.